When it’s someone’s birthday, who is the person on your team most likely to organise cupcakes and do the rounds getting everyone to sign a card? When the communal fridge has gone well past gross to an utterly inhumane level of foul, who gets stuck into the ‘it has to be done’ clean up? Who takes the notes in a meeting where it’s not technically the job of anyone present? And when Jamie is crying because that promotion passed them by yet again, who gives up their lunch hour to console and comfort?

Is it you? Well, then I’m going to hazard a guess that you’re a woman.

These kinds of tasks are collectively referred to as ‘office housework’. It needs to get done in order for a team or workplace to function congenially, effectively and, ah yes, hygienically. The responsibility for office housework generally isn’t a formal part of anyone’s job description and so it tends to be done by the same people over and over again.

And those people? Are the women.

For this week’s Future Women podcast, I spoke to researchers and experts about office housework and was floored by what I found. Did you know that in addition to women doing more of these types of activities, they’re actually expected to do more? And when they don’t, they're socially punished for it.

Listen to the latest instalment of the Future Women podcast here. (Post continues.)

In one New York University study a bunch of people were asked to assess the performance of employees who either did – or didn’t – stay late to help colleagues do extra administrative preparation for an important meeting. If a man stayed late to help, then he was rated 14 per cent more favourably than a woman who stayed late. And where both women and men declined to pitch in, choosing to go home instead, those women were rated 12 per cent less favourably.

What does this mean? A woman has to stay late and pitch in – unpaid – just to be rated roughly the same as a bloke who goes home on time. And the blokes who do help out? They’re more likely to be recommended for promotion and given team leadership opportunities.

This leaves us ladies in a literal lose-lose situation. We get no extra credit for helping, yet bosses and colleagues disapprove of us if we refuse.

Socially, our community still expects women to lend their time to low status tasks in the office, the same way we expect them to around the house. Australian women also do way more housework and child rearing than men - regardless of whether they have paid employment as well. It’s all part of the motherhood stereotype. That women, mothers or not, are expected to selflessly lend their time to look after everyone around them.

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I don’t know about you but this all leaves me rather disheartened. How are women supposed to reach equality with men, if we’re still stuck doing all the washing up and the coffee runs? This may seem like small and insignificant stuff but over time, it really does add up. And it adds up to an equation that consistently holds women back.

So, what do we do about it? Personally, I’m advocating for a cake baking, fridge cleaning and note taking strike. But if that’s not quite your thing, then take a listen to the Future Women podcast. There’s some really sensible and easily implemented advice from experts about how to push back while avoiding conflict.

It’s high time that your time at work was valued properly. Don’t you think?

Jamila Rizvi is editor-at-large of Future Women, a new content-led women's club. Join now for less than $2 a week.